Next chapter underway for Kickapoo with new coach

Kickapoo High School quarterback Will Burdick (14) throws a pass to one of his wide receivers during warm ups prior to the start of the Class 6 playoff game between Rockhurst High School and Kickapoo High School played at Pottenger Stadium in Springfield, Mo. on Oct. 28, 2016.(Photo: Guillermo Hernandez Martinez/News-Leader)Buy Photo

The Kickapoo Chiefs started a new season with a new quarterback, a new starting tailback and a new coach.

They also met the “Chief-maker,” a workout machine in the weight room that coach Nate Thomas introduced when he arrived on the scene. Coaches load the device with iron weights, and then aspiring football players are invited to propel the sled around the football team’s weight room at Kickapoo.

“It’s gonna push our kids to the brink in the weight room. They’re gonna push that sled. We’ll load it down with weight, and they’ll push that sled about 100 feet,” Thomas said. “It’s a deal where you’re gonna see some of your guys struggle and you have to see them push through adversity.”

Adversity will be a common theme for Kickapoo in the fall of 2017, considering the Chiefs lost their leading rusher, passer, receiver and tackler from the previous season. On top of the roster turnover, Kickapoo lost coach Kurt Thompson to retirement, but gained Thomas.

Thomas became head football coach at Marshfield at the start of the 2015 season. Before Marshfield, he spent 13 years as an assistant at Liberty High School in Kansas City. At Liberty, he worked under Joel Wells, the coach of the Kickapoo football team from 2011 to 2015.

Thomas welcomed the chance to become the next head coach of the Chiefs.

“It’s been an interesting last few months, that’s for sure. I couldn’t be more excited to come into a place like Kickapoo. Obviously, this is a place of great tradition,” Thomas said.

Apart from Thompson moving on and Thomas moving in, the assistant football coaching staff as Kickapoo hasn’t changed much. Former Chiefs head coach Kuper Kruel remains the Kickapoo defensive coordinator, headed into a seventh season as an assistant in the Kickapoo program.

“Coach Kruel does an unbelievable job with our defense,” Thomas said.

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Coach Nate Thomas at a Marshfield football practice in 2016.(Photo: News-Leader File Photo)

The Chiefs lost many veterans to graduation in the spring of 2017, but the team brings back two college football prospects in linemen Will Anoa’i and Ja’Von Sims.

“Those are two big anchors in there for us defensive line-wise that are going to hold down the middle,” Thomas said.

Kickapoo will also debut new starters at the premier offensive skill positions in quarterback Mason Auer, running back Dalton Coates and wide receiver Travis King. Whatever else happens lies within the grasp of any Chiefs players willing and able to emerge.

While Thomas is new to the scene at Kickapoo, he is quick to credit the former coach, Thompson, for being willing to help out at a moment’s notice.

“He’s been unbelievable. I owe that guy a steak dinner, because from the time he found out that I got the job he has bent over backwards to help me out and to show me the ropes. He’s been unbelievable for me,” Thomas said of Thompson.

Thomas was an all-state football, basketball and track and field athlete at Nixa, where he played for former Nixa and Kickapoo coach Wells. Thomas would later coach on Wells’ staff at Liberty. Wells went on to coach Kickapoo from 2011 to 2015.

The Kickapoo Chiefs were 9-2 last season and were eliminated by Rockhurst in the Class 6 district playoffs.

Thompson had two different periods coaching football at Kickapoo. His second stint spanned the 2015 and 2016 seasons.

Kickapoo won 62 games and lost 34 in Thompson’s first nine-year stint as head coach. The Chiefs were 20-3 in the second span. He retires with an overall record of 180-87.

Thomas said he does not plan to make a radical transition to Kickapoo’s style of play.